The cause was a heart attack a statement posted on his Web site said.
He is best known as the writer of Cocaine and After Midnight songs made famous when they were recorded by his collaborator Eric Clapton.
A multi instrumentalist Mr. Cale often played all of the parts on his albums also recording and mixing them himself. He is also credited as one of the architects of the 1970s Tulsa sound a blend of rockabilly blues country and rock that came to influence the likes of Neil Young and Bryan Ferry. He won a Grammy Award in 2007 for an album with Mr. Clapton The Road to Escondido.
Basically I m just a guitar player that figured out I wasn t ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing Mr. Cale told an interviewer for his official biography. So I got into songwriting which is a little more profitable business.
John Weldon Cale was born on Dec. 5 1938 in Oklahoma City. Survivors include his wife Christine Lakeland Cale and his sister Joan Cale Sommers.
Mr. Cale recorded After Midnight in the mid 1960s according to the biography but had retreated to his native Tulsa Okla. and given up on the business part of the record business by the time Mr. Clapton covered it in 1970. He heard it on the radio that year he told NPR and I went Oh boy I m a songwriter now. I m not an engineer or an elevator operator.
Mr. Cale released an album Naturally in 1972 to capitalize on that success and continued to tour and release new music until 2009. But he declined to put his image on most of his album covers and kept his vocals low amid the instruments on his recordings. He developed a reputation as a private figure and a musician s musician while his songs were covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd the Band Deep Purple Tom Petty and others.
I d like to have the fortune he said in his biography but I don t care too much about the fame.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction
Correction July 27 2013
An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of one of the musicians who was influenced by the Tulsa sound. He is Bryan Ferry not Brian.
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